“No,” Sherakai insisted, trying to give his voice more volume. “Let me go. Please let me go.”
“Do that, but anchor it. I’ll need you fully focused.”
Tylond nodded. “Will any of the others be joining us?”
“I don’t think that will be necessary. He is already bound to the earth and to me. That should suffice. I’ve instructed the mages to be prepared to give aid.”
The two of them talked over Sherakai as if he were no more than a tasty roast they planned to carve up for dinner. Then the healer shifted to stand at Sherakai’s head and cupped the youth’s cheeks. A surge of jade green obscured the indistinct glow that bathed everything. Tylond’s lips moved. Slowly, slowly, Sherakai’s breathing returned to normal. His lungs responded to the spell, though the growing fear in his mind didn’t diminish in the slightest.
“That’s good,” Bairith noted. “Do you need a moment?”
“No. Shall we proceed?”
“I am ready.”
Tylond disappeared from his limited view. Bairith held his hands out over Sherakai’s chest, chanting softly. The words settled in Sherakai’s ears, cold as well water. He sucked in a little, startled breath. Shadows formed, hovering over him, shifting this way and that. Portions reached out to touch him, cold and hungry. He could almost hear them whispering, voices filled with anticipation. A thumping and clanking came, pulling his arms up and his feet in the opposite direction.
Fear exploded into panic. “What are you doing?!” he cried.
Magic surged from Bairith. Dark, glittering power poured into Sherakai as the contraption jerked his body taut. Even through the haze of drugs, Sherakai heard a high-pitched wail that went on forever.
Chapter 4
~Listen. Focus on my voice, Sherakai, and all will be well. Hold on to me. I will not fail you.~
A buzzing sound made it difficult to understand anything. He tried to sit up and his dark reality slipped sideways, as though it avoided him.
~Easy, easy. Breathe in. Out. In. Out.~ The speaker spaced the words, matching them to Sherakai’s breaths and then slowing them. ~Well done. I have my hands on your face. Can you feel them?~
How could he recognize the difference between the darkness surrounding him and the darkness filling him? His face was somewhere between, he decided as something hot and wet slid down his cheeks. Movement met the moisture. A hand? “Yes.” The sound grated on his ears and rumbled through him. From it, he found a semblance of balance.
~Very good. Continue to find yourself, but go slowly. Hear your heart beat, rushing to fill your veins with blood. Feel your chest rise and fall with every breath. Taste the air you inhale. It is warm. There is a tang, like herbs and smoke. Breathe in through your nose. Smell the fire, smell leather and wool and metal. Relish the heat on your skin and the strength of wood beneath you.~
The voice guided him through each of his senses, then bade him to open his eyes. The face above him remained blurry no matter how many times he blinked, but the space beyond it was bright and cheerful.
“You are doing wonderfully, little dragon.”
“My mouth hurts.”
“Yes. It will pass. I need you to listen carefully. This is not yet ended.”
He still did not understand where he was, how he had come to be here, or why he felt so funny. He was lying down, he thought, on a hard surface. “What is it?”
“Growing and learning. This next step is difficult, but you can do it. You must do it.”
“Life or death?” he asked, curious and impossibly distant.
“Choose life.” Warmth and pressure again indicated movement against Sherakai’s face. “There will be pain. You must not turn away from it, however tempting flight may be. You have nowhere to go but forward. Embrace it. Push into the center of it and become the pain. Do you understand?”
“Pain,” he echoed, frowning a little, woozy and out of focus.
The voice repeated the instructions twice, once aloud, and once in his head like the first words had been. “Are you ready?”
“I am not sure…”
“A wise answer.” Approval and humor caressed him. So strange.
He didn’t have time to dwell on it. With no further warning, discomfort poured through him. He made a soundless protest, but it kept coming. It increased in strength until it became a great, black wave of agony in all his parts.
~It will conquer you if you allow it. You are stronger than that. Fight back. Be the pain.~ Bairith Mindar straightened and the warmth of his hands vanished.
“Help me!”
~I cannot. You must win this battle on your own.~
Up and down the wave tossed him, like a cork in a river. He braced himself inwardly, for there were no walls and no ground beneath his feet. He opened his mouth, opened himself, wider and wider, and swallowed the river.
The torment did not stop. It was still there, still threatening to knock him down and take him away, but he could breathe again. Rough, hitching noises came to his ears. It took a small eternity to identify the sounds as his own gasping breaths. His eyes shot open though he could not remember having closed them. He was ragged and tattered, jittery with half-formed thoughts and strange, black energy.
“Easy, easy,” the soothing continued.
“By the gods, I think we’ve done it,” someone else interrupted. Sherakai could not see who it was.
“Hush.” A scold. And then, much more gently, “Hush, hush…” The soothing turned into a song sung low and sweet. Mesmerizing. Strengthening.
Inch by hard-won inch, Sherakai recognized first the voice, then the face. Bairith Mindar. The room remained a puzzle. The pain did not let go, nor did it allow him to hush completely.
Sherakai wobbled in the flow of it and had to struggle for several minutes to right himself. The mage observed with intense curiosity and expectancy. “Have you restrained it?” He reached out to Sherakai’s shoulder.
“Don’t touch me,” he gasped, and lurched again. Control slipped away and back. In those insecure places, intense hurt stabbed at him without mercy.
Bairith nodded understanding and laced his fingers together while he waited.
“Can he keep it up?” The second man peered at him, keeping a distance.
“Perhaps. He is stronger in his Gift than the others.”
“Considerably, I would say. Please forgive me for doubting you, my lord. More practice at this task would allow us greater latitude in future alterations.”
“It might, but this is the only one that matters. I won’t risk him, Tylond. There is too much at stake.”
“What—?” The simple effort of voicing a question destroyed Sherakai's meager control. He cried out. No one was there to save him from the blackness. It consumed him whole, but it traded cold peace for the pain and, for a space, he drifted in it. He could stay there, couldn’t he? He surely couldn’t move on. Multihued strands of brightness disappeared into a vague distance. They led back, he thought. Back where?
Bairith and Tylond occupied his conscious moments, sometimes alone, sometimes together. Bairith played with shadows, working them deeper and tighter. The healer either helped or prodded Sherakai as if he were an interesting carcass found by the side of the road. Sherakai wanted them to leave him alone, but he had no voice to tell them even if he could have mustered the strength to use it.
From far away came the memory of light. His heart sped up, thumping hopefully. Horses occupied the light. Fields. Sunshine. The wind. He loved those things too much to give them up. Muffled words tugged at his awareness. “Papa?”
He didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud. The murk shifted. Where were the sunlight and the grass? Voices drifted above like radiant stars, glittering and only half understood.
“Why do you ask? He is doing better.”
“I cannot tell,” a woman said. “He is as still and pale today as he was three days ago.”
“He hurts.”
A pause. “Do you enjoy that?”
“It is nece
ssary. Through great effort comes great success.”
The words set him to spinning like a stick in a stream, then back into the depths. When he resurfaced, there was a space of silence broken only by the song of flames and wood shifting as it burned. After a long time, he recognized warmth along one side. It was lovely but for the scrape of ice on the underside of his skin.
“Returning to us, are you?” someone asked.
There came the drag of leather over stone, then a sharp clicking, and a sigh that wafted across one cheek.
“Go sit by the door, you dimwitted lump. Surely you are not too stupid to see he’s staying right where he is.”
One eyelid was pried open. It revealed stark shadows and blatant hunger. Sherakai whimpered and turned back to the darkness.
The pain finally receded enough that unconsciousness could hold him no longer. Sherakai woke to find both of his guard beasts nearby. Fesh on the bed beside him, and Teth on the floor. Fesh extended his snout and sniffed Sherakai’s cheek. One misshapen hand rested on his chest too lightly for words to describe. Still, it brought a wince and the creature immediately withdrew. Brows tented in concern, he jumped down to stand next to his brother.
“Hello,” Sherakai whispered.
They chittered back and forth as they sat him up to drink a little water—an activity that took his breath away. Afterward, they straightened the bedclothes, then stirred the fire. With no warning, they poured a strange blue concoction down his gullet, then gave him more water. Fesh wore a doleful expression. The pair set to combing their talons ever-so-gently through his hair. All the while, Fesh crooned a creaky song. Even such minor movement exhausted him, but this time when he closed his eyes it was to the embrace of sleep. He yearned to stay there, but an inconsistent bumping and jouncing dragged him awake.
Bound to a stretcher, he had a view of the ceiling, stone walls, and the equally stony face of one of the men carrying him. Occasional torchlight stretched the man’s expression into a nightmare. Sherakai couldn’t move to escape, and dared not cry out for fear of the attention it would bring. If he could just be invisible…The sound of shouting and weapons crashing tumbled down the hall. They must be near the practice chamber. Finally, they reached a small, windowless room.
The men started to untie him, but Teth shoved one of them aside, showing his fearsome teeth. Both men backed away in a hurry, and the beasts helped Sherakai to the unexpected warmth of a low, narrow bed. He slept fitfully after that. Tylond visited too often, usually to work Healing magic and ply him with tonics. The tenor of his insults changed, suggesting an obscure promotion on Sherakai’s part. It puzzled him when he thought about it, which was rarely, but he didn’t ask. He refused to speak to the man anymore than necessity required.
One day the beasts carried in an empty half barrel, prompting a slippery recollection. As they settled it into place and filled it with steaming water, it registered that the ‘steaming’ part hadn’t happened last time. The appearance of the room suddenly took on a new meaning. This was his room. Fesh and Teth had brought him here to clean him and dress him before—
“Oh, gods…” he choked out between jagged memories of steel and magic.
Fesh held his hand, crooning as he stroked it. Sherakai caught hold and squeezed, heedless of the claws that had once frightened him. The creature helped him sit up, then vaulted up beside him to encircle Sherakai in a one-armed embrace.
Teth sat down with a bucket in his lap and waited. He didn’t wait long. Talons began an uneven, impatient tapping on the wood. Fesh chirped at him. He rolled his eyes and stuck a hand in the tub, only to withdraw it again with a hiss. More chittering resulted in a few buckets of cold water.
Come, Fesh indicated with a wave at the bath. He tapped his chest, cupped his hands together, then opened them in a circular motion. Good feel.
Teth held up a thick cloth and a bar of soap, grinning.
“Did you steal those?” Sherakai’s voice rasped painfully.
He nodded up and down with a toothy grin. Setting them aside, he approached to help Fesh. One on either side, they got him to his feet and half carried him to the barrel. The room swam, but that hardly surprised him. The water only came up to his chest, but it held a deeply gratifying, watery heat. A sigh of pleasure left him as he sank into it.
Fesh grumbled and thumped the wood with his fist, disgusted at the sorry size of the tub.
“This is wonderful. Thank you. You didn’t need to carry up all that hot water.”
Fesh nodded and gestured again, which Sherakai took to mean that of course they did, they’d wanted to.
While they bathed him, Sherakai held his hands out to examine. Saints knew he had plenty of light by which to see. The beasts had lit not one, but three lamps. They exposed dark, ugly bruises on both arms. Inky tendrils curled around and through the damaged parts. A glance revealed legs and torso in the same condition. They must have broken more than his arms… He flexed experimentally. To his relief, everything worked the way it ought, though he felt strange.
His jaw tightened as he considered what the changes meant. Cautious, he drew on the aro to inspect them more carefully. Breathing through pursed lips helped combat a wave of dizziness. Shadows. Cold and strong. They held him together.
He shuddered and folded his arms around his middle. Teth promptly pried a wrist free so he could scrub, solicitousness tempering his glee. They scrubbed him head to toe, then sat him on a thin mat. Fesh dragged the brazier closer and wrapped a blanket over the youth’s shoulders. Teth set to trimming his hair and scraping his upper lip with a razor.
“I have a mustache?”
Teth waggled two fingers, shrugged, and dipped the blade in the bath water to rinse it. His other hand pushed away Sherakai’s exploration of his lip.
“How is that possible?” He caught Teth’s wrist, heart jumping. “How long was I—unconscious?”
They both stared at him.
He let the creature loose. The blanket had fallen with the action; he drew it up again. “What did they do to me?” he whispered. “Can you tell me?”
The pair took turns, guttural speech interrupted by hoots and clicking teeth.
He wished he could make sense of them. It was within his power to read their emotions, though. Why did the idea make him uncomfortable?
“Listen,” he broke in. “I have a Gift. Magic. I can feel what you feel. It might help me understand you a little better if I use it. If I have your permission?” And if he didn’t? He wasn’t sure he wanted to take the first step down that path.
Fesh straightened, then nodded once, eyes sharp and bright. Teth backed up a few steps. A single bark launched the two into a debate that went on until Teth stalked to the door and out. He left it a little ajar. Fesh fetched the razor to finish the shaving, whistling and hooting softly as he worked.
“I don’t blame him.” Even so, his heart fell. Teth didn’t trust him. Why should he? He was their ward and their owner’s property, not their companion. “Look what magic did to you. I would never do something like that, Fesh. Not ever. It’s wrong.”
Fesh patted his head as if he were a child. When the patting didn’t gain the creature the attention he wanted, two talons lifted Sherakai’s chin. He pointed at Sherakai’s eyes, then at himself.
“You will help me?”
Fesh nodded, gray eyes serious.
“It won’t get you in trouble, will it? I didn’t know he’d punish you when I locked you in the cell…”
He snarled and snapped at the air in front of Sherakai’s nose.
The youth closed his eyes instinctively but didn’t flinch. “There are limits.” He got a nod in response and pursed his lips, reasoning through this situation. “Reading your emotions is like watching you move.” Another nod. “He never said we couldn’t learn how to talk to each other.” Fesh nodded again, and Sherakai cupped the creature’s ugly face. Fesh copied him.
Senses opened to Fesh, he drew on a thread of magic. He was struck by the
intensity of scent and sound. He could smell his wet hair, hear the hiss of the lamp flames. The beast regarded him, patient and curious. Working his way past the initial unexpectedness, Sherakai concentrated on Fesh’s emotions. The awareness of understanding, sympathy, pleasure, and regret—and nagging pain—came to him. He took a deep breath, as if he could suck it into his lungs and make it a part of him. “Thank you,” he whispered, tugging Fesh close, forehead to forehead. “It is such a rare gift you give me. I promise I will use it carefully.”
Chapter 5
There were no more days allowed for rest and recovery. The following morning, Teth roused Sherakai from a restless sleep, jabbing at his chest and dragging away the warmth of the blankets.
“Stars and saints, what time is it?” he mumbled, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
The brazier glowed, warm and cozy. The two extra lamps had disappeared, but one sufficed. Fesh skittered in with a scanty meal of gruel and bacon. They swiftly had him fed, dressed, and out the door.
“Where are we going?” he asked, tugging his sleeves straight. The cuffs were strangely short.
Teth made a wriggling motion with a knobby finger. Fesh grinned.
“Snake? Worm? Oh.” He’d rather not see Tylond. Head down, he followed his guards to the healer’s quarters. To his relief, they didn’t take him back to the surgery. They took their time, and Sherakai only had to pause twice going up the stairs, quivery and lightheaded.
“Boy.” Not an ounce of warmth colored the mage’s voice. “Come in and sit.” He pointed at one of a pair of cots.
Fesh and Teth stayed at the door while Sherakai did as he was bid. He disliked the lower, more vulnerable position.
“Did you eat?”
“Yes.”
“How did you sleep?” The cool, dry skin of his hands reminded Sherakai more of the dead than worms.
“Well enough.” He didn’t think he would ever sleep properly again.
“Your unwillingness to provide details makes me want to slap you.” His tone was so mild he might have been discussing the weather. Grasping the youth’s face, he pulled down the skin beneath his eyes. A critical examination had him pursing his mouth.
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